When President Trump took to the rostrum at the United Nations in 2018, world leaders in the audience laughed when he boasted of the success of his first administration. On Tuesday, it appeared Trump was getting the last laugh.

Trump made a defiant return to the United Nations for his first General Assembly meeting since winning a second term. The president spent nearly an hour taking world leaders to task on issues such as migration and climate change and questioning the value of the very organization he was addressing.

It was a speech that left world leaders murmuring to each other at times about what they had just heard, applauding Trump at certain moments — such as when he called for the release of hostages in Gaza — and sitting in silence as the president insisted he knew best how they should handle their countries.

“I'm really good at predicting things,” Trump told the audience during a lengthy diatribe against clean energy and the concept of climate change. “During the campaign they had a hat — a best-selling hat — ‘Trump was right about everything.’ And I don't say that in a braggadocious way, but it's true. I've been right about everything.”

Trump’s remarks reflected the dramatically different tone this administration has had from his prior one.

Trump has rapidly shifted the U.S. away from the

© The Hill